Friday, August 26 2005 17:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram today (Aug 25, 2005) presented in Parliament the first ever Outcome Budget, which seeks to measure the physical targets achieved on the financial outlays of various Ministries.

Describing the exercise as "historic", Chidambaram expressed the hope in Lok Sabha that this would become an annual feature.

Though the 725-page voluminous document might "not be perfect," Chidambaram said it was a "great beginning" in response to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's directive to attempt such an exercise.

Indicating that the outcome budget would become as important as general budget, Chidambaram said this was a mechanism to measure the development outcome of all major programmes.

It stressed upon the importance of converting financial outlays into physical outcomes, with fixed quarterly measurable and monitorable targets, so as to improve the quality of implementation of developmental programmes.

Though converting outlays into outcomes was a complex process, Chidambaram said the important steps followed in this conversion process included specific definition of outcomes in measurable and monitorable terms, standardisation of unit cost of delivery and benchmarking the standards.

It has also ensured flow of right amount of money at the right time to the right level with neither delay nor parking of funds, he said.

It provides for effective monitoring and evaluation systems.

Chidambaram said this exercise has been taken up only for the plan expenditure now and from next year outcome budget will be prepared for the non-plan expenditure too.